Broken Bones & Crying Stones

The whispers through the trees,
and their dying leaves
sing. They sing for me.
And I'll lay in these lush meadows
to see a silhouette
appear on my horizon.

Although, I realize,
the dawn may never come,
this heart never seemed to fail before.
For had life sprung
from the now gone eternity,
I could have stepped into that infinite sea
shining before me.

But my palace
is the castle that falls.
And my pillows see no sleep.
But they dream
of a day when a head
will stay.

I wish I had waited
more patiently for the rain.
But the sun scorched the flesh,
down to my aching bones.

I have hoped in the depths
of a new moon night
that one day I'll lay
under ancient lights again.

And I know my broken feet
walk only on stones
but those stones belong to an existence
far greater than my own.
And I'd walk upon them for miles,
if only for one more smile.

Something Like Drowning

This place seems battered,
hounded and betrayed.
It's tired and afraid.
How much left is there to lose?
When will the clock on the wall
lose its melodic ticking?
Cold coffee on the counter,
went untouched.
Burn all the blank books on the shelves,
to release their words in horrid shrieks.
Migraines of questions unanswered
but too late to ask.
There's no song and no time
to break this fever.
No time in the world.

It's cold, alone, in bitter words but
better left that way.
There wasn't a light on the horizon
that didn't fade away.
And there's no way out of this place.
So reflex kicks in,
can't hold it any longer,
and water fills the lungs,
convulsions stab at the muscles.
And death comes closer every inhale,
the organs, the heart, the mind.
Become a waste of time.

Never Let Me Go

"[...] and I half closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field and gradually get larger until I'd see it [...]"

~Kazuo Ishiguro~

Distracting Still Waters

Harmony in their existence,
they cry out for me to lead them
to the gallows and swim
in human filth.
But the tides will turn,
and I am their filth,
stripped to bone,
I am their hate, their innocence, their folly.
I have led them to their being and hung myself,
in that place.
I am not love,
I am an abstraction, or rather,
distraction.
I am not you,
but I am inside you.
I had made love to you,
on a Persian rug and sucked the poison
from your soul.
I have healed you of the beast
that brought you to me.
Birthed in the precious waters of moments,
but I am your leech,
who abandoned the excess and drinks only the life.
I am me, but I am not me,
a dream within your dream,
not a reality.
But with a fire that burns for all time,
I dance around it,
the mourning of your death.
With charms of resurrection,
dripping sour blood from my tongue.
I am bones, imprisoned in muscle,
in skin.
Hear my fatal yelps as I collapse within.
I am your mistake,
your one, only regret.
In those moments when your roof collapsed,
I passed those roses to you.
I am amnesia,
a glance, a tombstone, a relic,
antiquated youth that guessed the age.
I am your hurt,
trickling down between your thighs,
euphoric cries.
I am the mirage,
in your desert of life,
there but not there,
I wait on receding lines, you will never touch.
Yet I am still....
alive.

My Wish

I wish for the world to fall into your hands.
For the oceans to flow in your veins,
for the soil to roll over your skin.
I wish for the fire to burn in your soul,
for the cool, still, air to fill your mind.
And I wish for all the peace to fill your eyes,
so that only hopeful rain you may cry.
And I wish for your heart to sail in the sky,
and to reach freedom as you fly.

The Last Was The Swansong

There is a well, a hole in the Earth,
it shelters you from all that can hurt.
No one can or will ever find you,
safe to stay there rather than anywhere.

But in those pools I see reflected
a stranger, a face so old, so torn from its mind.
Where has it gone? What has it given in to?
Where was the glory in life?
Was it there and then gone?
Never there at all.

Your eyes reflect light the same as that man in the corner.
The same as the world.
you do not see but shadows, you move right through me.
The things I believe just walk right on by...
or do they trample? I can't quite know anymore than what I'm told.

The only truth heard in whispers behind me,
they say so many things...
but I stay to dream, a cerulean hue,
my color palette the same,
comfort in pain,
it brings honesty to the reason of my being.
What I am, what I forever will be and longed for more,
written on fine parchment paper,
marked in silk ribbon.
No one ever reads.

The Great Gatsby

"He must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about...like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees."

~F. Scott Fitzgerald~

A year.
An anniversary.
Inhalation, exhalation.
Short winded sorrows.
Yesterday's dying dreams
exposed on pavement.
Streets left unswept,
empty even in death.
Crushed flora
wheels of time.
Laughter ringing.
Screams echo.
Whispers follow.
Canyons gray and black misted mountains,
those goats can climb.
Skies reign
cerulean pain
Gods of men
fail within.
Smiles in eyes
Never forgets.
Fails to consider.
Confusion again.
Deliberate disregard.
Avoidance witnessed.
Beasts to cradle.
Demons to dance with.
Hazy afternoons come soon.
Lost.
Never seen, never there,
meaningless being,
merely existing.
Fucked over delusional.
Cut from grasp.
Call as they pass.
Docks drown among waves.
Fish flee from yesterday.
Imprisoned, alienated,
isolated, stripped.
Patient smile.
Coffee beans grind
easier to find.
Fallen to fall.
Nooses, vivacious skin.
Veiny, supple neck.
Grease enters in.
Sweep blackness,
under the rug.
Search hay in needle stacks.
Pulling knives from others' backs.
Hang around, watch 'em scurry.
Days are numbered, lettered,
alphabetized,
organized.
Pay fees for what is free.
Smoking cigarettes to save lives,
money, emotional ties.
Turn page.
Around the margins
glowing angst.
Favored by most,
no room to boast.
Orphaned in self-expression
put aside.
Another try.
Take a drive.
Attempt to fly.
Broken.
Beaten, battered,
black-eyed.
Test results back:
Normal.
But then why-?
Too late to cry.
Believing.
Thinking.
Feeling...
pensive.
Soaked pillows,
swollen eyes.
Everything, everything lies.
Disappears, dies.
Same streets.
Same town.
Haunted mind,
feeling down.
Wine to water.
Grass to dirt.
Everything, every part hurts.
Carry on,
they look on.
Whispered words.
Disapproval.
Wearing "A's"
moral wilderness.
A life.
Promised.
A secret.
Alone.
No one shall ever know.
Drown rat, disease plagued.
Defend until death
A thought understood
A feeling... insecure.
No answers found.
A year.
An anniversary.
A toast,
to tomorrow.

Starry Starry Night

Music is an incredible art. Probably because it is a tradition of expression and communication dating back so far that it goes unrecorded as to the beginnings. It is something that every single human being can identify as an interest. We all listen to music, whether we consider other's tastes in it "good" or "bad" is far too biased of a declaration. Although I tend to be picky about music, I have never shunned the acceptance of the art in it's various forms for everyone else to enjoy. For me, music takes on a meaning beyond that of just enjoying the sound. Music is so much more than just hearing to me; I feel it, I taste it, I devour every note, every line of lyric, and when it's all over, I want nothing more than to experience it again and again. Ever since I was a child hearing music has been my obsession. From Mozart to, well, whatever I'm into at the moment. My father always appreciated that in me. I can remember him putting on records of classical music and, of course, the most vibrant memory is that of the Broadway soundtrack to The Phantom of the Opera. I would hear music and suddenly get real quiet, close my eyes and dream I was there, inside of it. I wanted to own every note and keep them with me always.

Naturally, I decided to try and create my own music. After my dad taught me the basics of piano, I sat there obsessively trying to make music. Well, several instruments later I learned that perhaps something that unique, that perfect, that absolutely beautiful actually does take a special kind of natural talent. But I had my voice and I used to sing for anyone who asked, but as I got older that eagerness to perform sort of just plain died and I stuck with singing in the shower. Although my grandmother does desperately try, "But you're voice is beautiful! Why don't you sing?!"

"Well, grandma, if it is as beautiful as you say, shouldn't I keep it inside for the right listener? Beautiful things should never be tossed about as if they were worthless imitations of originals."

So she continues to shuffle around the kitchen making cakes and singing her favorite hits from the 40's and 50's. My grandmother and I share a common stubbornness.

As I grew up, mostly with my father's music blaring from the stereo system, echoing around the neighborhood as the summer breeze carried it through the house, I developed certain tastes for the "right" sound and the "perfect" lyrics. As I was also an avid poetry writer (not very good poetry, mind you), I found in songs an entire new way to deliver the emotion of a poem through the perfection that is music.

My dad used to tell me stories of his glorious summers growing up. Songs would bring him back to specific years, even moments of his life and I always found that to be a spell that is intertwined in music, as I've experienced the same thing. But the power of music was written in the telling of one of his stories as "Vincent" by Don McLean came on the radio while we were playing chess.

He told me when he was fourteen he had a friend with a little brother who was mentally challenged and would sway back and forth whilst mumbling nonsense. One day they were playing cards and the little brother was sitting with them, swaying and mumbling, and that song came on the radio. Suddenly the boy stopped swaying, looked up at the people sitting at the table and said, "This song is about Vincent Van Gogh," and then, just as quick as he had stopped, went back to swaying and mumbling.

There, in that thirty seconds of conciousness, is the proof of how profoundly powerful music really is and for that matter, how important it is. "Vincent" is a very poetically beautiful written song, no real masterpiece, but the context of it is the saddest truth of one person's actual life and this boy recognized it. It was probably only because of the mentioning of Starry Night, but no less impressive when you consider that a second before speaking he appeared the most disassociated member at the table.

To me, the story always reminds me of the day I finally realized that there is no possible way to meticulously write a song based off of the knowledge of notes, rhythm, and time. Music is much more powerful than that. Music takes a true artist to conquer it, to sit down and just know it. It's Mozart, constantly hearing music in his head and jotting perfection down on sheets of paper with no mistakes and no copies made. It's Beethoven, desperately pounding the keys, feeling the music he was unable to hear. It's four geniuses meeting, collaborating, and creating the greatest collection of art in our time. It's the man playing saxaphone, echoing through the stone gateways of the Louvre on a summer night in Paris, whom I paid 42 of my remaining Euros and smiled, having no way to put in words the love I felt for the sound he was creating. I have no talent for the instruments. Although I long for it and envy it with every bit of flesh on my body, I lack the ability to create music the way some can. But I am thrilled with the idea that I have ears still, and I can still feel it and taste it too. Yes, I love music with an astounding passion. It's an escape to a world that is safe and filled with dreams and other such romances. It corrupts me and holds me just as words do, all through the madness of the midnight hours.
So, for those of you who are unfamiliar with that song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dipFMJckZOM